


The Mark of a Warrior

by newdisaster



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-13
Updated: 2013-08-13
Packaged: 2017-12-23 08:16:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/924005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newdisaster/pseuds/newdisaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Molly starts her period while working in the morgue and is completely horrified when Sherlock and John notice. Sherlock has some thoughts on the matter and he lets them be known.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Mark of a Warrior

John was not a very squeamish man. He couldn’t afford to be, what with the army and with his current occupation as Sherlock Holmes’ side kick. However, the bodies that were currently lying on the slab in Bart’s morgue were making him squirm.

Sherlock was, as ever, seemingly unaffected. Molly also appeared rather calm.

“So he castrated the male and proceeded to cut out the reproductive organs of the female,” she finished her report. Sherlock was staring at the bodies, the deep incisions the killer had made writing out Bible verses.

“They were lovers, then,” Sherlock observed, “but it was an affair. The verses written on them all have to do with adultery.”

Molly shook her head.

“Well, that’s sad,” she commented and then leaned over to zip up the body bags.

That was when John noticed the red stain between the back of her legs.

“Er, Molly,” he started, but then broke off, entirely unsure of what to say. He was fairly positive that the blood was not that of the victim’s, but her own. However, the last thing John wanted was to have Sherlock notice and make some kind of comment.

 “I think you got some of their blood on your outfit,” he decided to go with, but gave her a look.

Molly look down at her blouse and the front of her trousers.

“Really? Where? I’m usually so careful.”

“I’d just head to the loo and take care of it,” he suggested, but a change in Sherlock’s demeanor told him that it was too late.

“Molly, you’ve started your menstrual cycle and ill-preparedness has caused you to leak into your trousers.”

Immediately,  John watched Molly’s face turn to that of absolute horror. Her mouth dropped, her eyes filled with tears, and her embarrassment made her voice crack a few times.

“Oh!” she started sobbing and ran out of the morgue. Sherlock’s brow furrowed as she ran out.

“Damn it, Sherlock,” John lowered his head, “you can’t keep doing this to her.”

“Doing what? I merely informed her of the situation.”

“You can’t...” John fumbled with words, “you have to be discreet about this sort of thing. Women don’t like to advertise when they’re on their period.”

“And you know this how? Got something to tell me?”

“No, Sherlock, but I lived with my mum and sister long enough to have a pretty good idea. I bought their pads and tampons for them and I remember when my sister would come home in tears because she leaked through her trousers and got laughed at.”

Sherlock seemed completely aghast all of the sudden.

“Laughed at?”

“Yes.”

“Do…do women get mocked for being on their menstrual cycles frequently?”

“Well, not as they get older.”

“Why did _you_ buy their feminine supplies?”

“What, my mother’s and sister’s?”

“Yes.”

“Well, because it’s embarrassing.”

“Embarrassing?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Well…because when a woman goes up to buy those, the general assumption is that the woman is on her period.”

“And this is embarrassing?”

“It’s a little personal to know about a woman’s private business.”

“But why is it embarrassing?”

Sherlock sounded positively baffled by it being embarrassing and John struggled with his words. How did he explain that it was embarrassing to know that a woman was bleeding profusely from her vagina?

“It just…is. Women like to be discreet about this sort of thing.”

“Like to be discreet or think they have to be?”

John opened his mouth but his confusion was reaching its peak.

“I’m not sure what you’re asking.”

“Why was Molly crying?” Sherlock asked, seeming annoyed.

“Because you knew she was on her period and because she bled through.”

“She looked mortified.”

“She probably was. It’s embarrassing.”

Sherlock’s face altered and he wore a similar expression to when he had solved a case.

“No,” he said, “it’s not.”

Without another word, he started walking unnaturally fast out of the morgue. John hurried after him. Sherlock was moving with determination and John’s eyes went wide when he saw they were headed straight for the women’s bathroom. John lurched out and grabbed Sherlock’s sleeve, but he only succeeded in letting himself get dragged into the loo.

Molly was standing at the sink, sobbing, her face red and face streaked with tears. She was holding her soiled trousers in her hand and her phone in the other.

“I just need—oh! Sherlock!” she moved back and John noticed that she was now wearing her lab coat and it was buttoned up. Her legs were bare.

“Finish your phone call, Molly,” Sherlock instructed.

“You can’t be in here!”

“Molly,” he said, his tone severe. His tone seemed to only make her cry harder.

“Can you just bring them to me? Please, hurry. Thank you,” she said and then ended the call.

“Sherlock, please, just go away,” she begged him, discarding her trousers in the bin and looking away from him, “I don’t need any more humiliation.”

John was about to say something of the same vein when Sherlock stepped forward. Molly’s face was one of absolute terror as he neared her, but then transformed instantly to shock when Sherlock took her hands in his gloved ones.

“Molly Hooper, you have absolutely no reason to feel ashamed.”

Neither Molly nor John remembered how to breathe for a moment.

“What?” Molly finally squeaked out.

“You are experiencing menstruation, something that practically every single person of the female sex experiences. It is a natural part of life.”

“Sherlock, I…” she started but his hands moved to her shoulders.

“I mean it. You have no reason to be embarrassed or ashamed as if it was something revolting. It’s not. You should nearly take pride in it. Menstruation is a sign of the ability to reproduce. Without this ability, humanity would die out.”

“Really, you don’t have to—”

“Yes I do, Molly, because you don’t understand,” Sherlock continued, and for a few moments, he struggled to find words.

“What happened in the lab is not shameful. You should not feel ashamed. So you bled onto your trousers. An inconvenience, obviously. But not anything to be embarrassed or ashamed of. It is a part of the body’s natural process. If you were mocked before, it was by prepubescent or at least mentally immature morons. Any man who mocks a woman for having her period is not a man worth conversing with in the first place. You are going through something no man of that sort could imagine having to deal with. The blood of menstruation should be viewed as a badge of honor, of a warrior frankly. But it is up to you to challenge anyone who dares mock you or belittle you for something that has been a part of life since life itself. It isn’t shameful, Molly. It’s beautiful.”

Molly was flabbergasted. John was agog. Sherlock was sincere.

John was suddenly challenging everything he had ever thought regarding women. He stopped and allowed himself to think about what he knew about it. There was more than blood, which already made things messy and worrisome throughout the day. There was cramps, bloating, mood swings, fatigue, and dizziness. Sometimes, it made women sick for days before, during, and then days after. And yet, they didn’t take days of school and they didn’t get to call in sick. They struggled through.

And then there was the problem with the actual bleeding. As John could see, most clothes would be ruined. Bloodstains (he knew first hand) were not easily removed. To avoid leaking, women used pads, which probably felt like diapers, or tampons, which were just sort of awkward and probably didn’t help cramping. Some women used both, so afraid and self-conscious that they suffered through.

It was like being hit in the face with a two-by-four. John immediately moved to Sherlock’s side.

“He’s right,” he said softly, “you have no reason to feel ashamed at all.”

Molly looked between the two of them. Her eyes started welling up with tears again, but this time, her face also turned into a happy smile. She launched forward, flinging her arms around Sherlock’s neck and hugging him tightly. John saw her eyes close.

“Thank you,” she whispered into Sherlock’s shoulder.

“You’ve no reason to thank me either, I was stating facts,” Sherlock said, “for example, I’ll remind you that you are not wearing trousers beneath your lab coat.”

“Oh bloody hell!” Molly pushed off him, blushing,” get out, the both of you!” she waved them off, but there was still a timid smile present. Sherlock smirked and took John’s arm.

“Come along, John,” he said and they exited. John stared at him in utter amazement. After he didn’t look away for a full minute, Sherlock raised an eyebrow at him.

“John, if you continue to stare at me in that manner, people will talk.”

“Well,” John laughed, “people do little else, like you said, but I was going for looking at you like you’ve grown a second head.”

“Ah, I do believe you were close with that expression,” Sherlock smiled. They headed out of St. Bart’s and down to get a cab.

“You sort of did grow a second head there, you know,” John continued, “a head that was nice and kind and considerate.”

“I can be all of those things,” Sherlock frowned.

“Mmm, not usually and definitely not to Molly.”

Sherlock’s frown seemed to become more pronounced, but he made no comment on that, instead favoring to keep on the topic.

 “I was simply making sure that Molly knew that she had nothing to worry about. There was nothing embarrassing about the ordeal. I was not disgusted and I knew you would not be either. Besides, it’s simple science, John. I am a man of science, just as you are a doctor. Why would I be anything but unaffected by something as natural as menstruation.”

“It just seemed…odd, frankly,” John pointed out, “you don’t seem the type to be so…compassionate.”

“Compassion?” Sherlock smirked, “That was not compassion. That was being informative. Molly was generally ignorant and thought she needed to be horrified by something that wasn’t her fault and completely natural. I remedied her ignorance.”

“You were nice.”

“I ended—”

“Almost sweet.”

“—her naïve notions on the world.”

“Sure, you did.”

Sherlock gave John a mock glare, but caved to smile when he was met with a toothy grin. He turned his head to stare out the window, and to hide his own smile. John shook his head and filed away what he now knew about his flatmate. Sherlock was a supporter of women, even if he didn’t always seem to be, and he definitely, most certainly had a heart, but he’d never admit to it if asked.

John giggled and looked over the man next to him, still hiding his grin. Maybe there was hope for Sherlock yet.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this piece as therapy. A few months back, I was on the floor during karate. You know, in white pants? When I took them off, I discovered that there was an extremely large red stain on them and that I had started my period during a kicking class. I was mortified. I had to drive myself to a store in soiled underwear, praying it didn't get worse and ruin the jeans I put on, and buy myself pads and tampons.
> 
> I can't tell you how shitty I felt. I spent the rest of the night in my room, crying and horrified. I cried so hard. We had done a KICKING class where you raise your legs up and no one had said a thing to me about the massive red blotch. But they couldn't have missed it.
> 
> That night, I decided to rewatch Sherlock just to kind of calm down and that was when I saw this is my head. It realized immediately that if Sherlock Holmes had been there, he would have told me that there was nothing to be ashamed of. That it was natural and that it was normal and I had no reason to be embarrassed.
> 
> So I wrote this. Frankly, I don't give a damn if you think it's out of character because I truly and sincerely believe it is spot on. Why would Sherlock think it's gross or shame her? He wouldn't. It's just a thing the body does, so Sherlock would be fine with it.
> 
> So yeah! Leave any thoughts, comments, or critiques (okay even if you DO think it's out of character).


End file.
